It's frickin freezing in Chicago, I can't use my hose spigot for cooling the wort, and it's too cold to hang out outside and tend to my beer. I was going to resort to extract brewing, but decided to give Brew in a Bag a shot. Grabbed some paint strainer bags over at the HD this morning. Ground my grain, got the water heating. What can I expect for efficiency compared to normal? I have my entire water volume in the mash, and will just pull the bag out, drain, and bring to a boil. I usually hit in the 80's for efficiency with a fly sparge. I am not sparging this at all. I am doing the flanders first...then the roggenbier. A roggenbier has been on my list, but I had been dreading the sparge, so I decided what better time than my first BIAB session to try it out? Here's a few pics so far...

Bag in a pot to grind my grains into

Ground grains...won't be brewing in this pot, using my 10.5gal polarware Kettle

My first two all grain sessions with brew in a bag gave me 80% efficiency. The best I have had was 85% and my last one was only 76% because the lock nut came loose on my grain mill and I ground half of the grain too coarse. I don't see why yours should do worse.

My first two all grain sessions with brew in a bag gave me 80% efficiency. The best I have had was 85% and my last one was only 76% because the lock nut came loose on my grain mill and I ground half of the grain too coarse. I don't see why yours should do worse.

Small World, mine did that too. Luckily, I noticed my rye was still whole...so I ground it all a second time with the gap reset.

I pitched my roselare blend at 95 deg F...I have heard it can be finnicky at low temps, hopfully it takes off, i keep my upstairs at 60F during the winter. The Roggenbier is almost done boiling. Made the executive decision last sec to throw some chocolate malt, roasted barley, and black malt (10oz, 4oz, and 2oz respectively) to make a chocolately roggenbier. It's defintely dark.